"Oh, yes, I had news of that! But how is she recently?"
"Recently?" Tandy's brow furrowed.
Smash caught on to the nature of the Siren's question. "She wants to know whether the Gorgon is pregnant," he murmured.
Tandy was startled. "Oh--I don't know about that. I don't think so. But she does seem happy, and so does the Magician."
The Siren frowned. "I'm so glad she found hers. I wish I had found mine." And Smash now perceived, from this close range and the magnification of his interpretive intellect, that the Siren was not happy at all. She bad lost her compelling magic twenty years ago and had very little left
Such things had not before been concerns of Smash's. Ogres hardly cared about the nuances of the lifestyles of nymphal creatures. Now, thanks to the curse of the Eye Queue, Smash felt the Siren's problem, and felt the need to alleviate it. "We are going to Lake Ogre-Chobee. Perhaps if you went there, you would find yours."
The Siren brightened. "That's possible."
"But we are having trouble finding the way," he said. "The Madness intercedes."
"It's a nuisance," the Siren agreed. "But there are ways around it"
"We would like to know of one."
"Well, there's the catapult. Yet you have to pay the cat's price."
"What is the cat's price?" Tandy asked warily. "If it's a kind of demon, we might not like it."
"It likes catnip--and that's not easy to get"
"Smash could get it," Tandy said brightly. "He fought a tangle tree and a pride of ant-lions."
"Well, he's an ogre," the Siren agreed matter-of-factly. "That sort of thing is routine for them."
"Why don't you come with us and show us where the catnip is?" Tandy suggested. "Then we can all go to the catapult and on to Lake Ogre-Chobee."
The Siren considered. "I admit I don't seem to be accomplishing much here. I never thought I'd travel with an ogre!" She faced Smash. "Are you tame? I've beard some bad things about ogres--"
"They're all true!" Smash agreed. "Ogres are the worst brutes on two legs. But I was raised in the environs of Castle Roogna, so am relatively civilized."
"He's really very nice, when you get to know him," Tandy said. "He doesn't crunch the bones of friends."
"I'll risk it," the Siren decided. "I'll lead you to the catnip." She adjusted her dress, packed a few fish for nibbling on the way, and set oft, leading them east of the lake.
The catnip grew in a section of the jungle separated by a fiercely flowing stream. They had to use a narrow catwalk past a cataract that was guarded by a catamount. "Don't fall into the water," the Siren warned. "It's a catalyst that will give you catarrh, catatonia, and catalepsy."
"I don't understand," Tandy said nervously. "Is that bad?"
"A catalyst is a substance that facilitates change," Smash explained, drawing on his new Eye Queue intellect. "In the case of our living flesh, this is likely to mean deterioration and decay such as catarrh, which is severe inflammation inside the nose, catatonia, which is stupor, and catalepsy, which is loss of motion and speechlessness. We had better stay out of this water; it is unlikely to be healthy."
"Yes, unlikely," Tandy agreed faintly. "But the catamount is on the catwalk! It will throw us off."
"Oh, I wouldn't be concerned about that," Smash said. He strode out on the catwalk. It dipped and swayed under his mass, but he had the sure balance of his primitive kind and proceeded with confidence.
"No violence!" Tandy pleaded.
The catamount was a large reddish feline with long whiskers and big paws. It snarled and stalked toward Smash, its tail swishing back and forth.
No violence?
A fright would have been fun, but Smash realized now that the girls would worry, so he used his intellect to ponder on a peaceful option. What about the one he had used on the moat-monster at the Good Magician's castle? "I want to show you something, kitty," he said. He leaned forward and held out his right hand. The catamount paused distrustfully.
Smash carefully closed his gauntleted hamfingers into a huge, gleaming fist. Shafts of sunlight struck down to elicit new gleams as Smash slowly rotated his fist. It was amazing how each shaft knew exactly where to go!
Smash nudged this metallic hamfist under the catamount's nose. "Now kitty," he said quietly, "if you do not vacate this path expeditiously, you are apt to have a closer encounter with this extremity. Does this eventuality meet with your approval?"
The feline's ears twitched as if it suffered indigestion; it seemed to have a problem with the vocabulary. It considered the extremity. The fist sent another barrage of glints of reflected sunlight out, seeming to grow larger. The ogre stood perfectly balanced and at ease, muscles bulging only slightly, fur lying almost unruffled. After a moment, snarling ungraciously, the catamount decided not to dispute the path this time. It backed away.
Well, well. Smash thought. His bluff had worked--now that he had the wit to bluff. Of course, it would have been fun to hurl the catamount into the water below and see what happened to it, but that pleasure was not to be, this time.
A catbird sailed down out of the sky. It had the body of a crow and the head of a cat. "Meow!" it scolded the catamount, and issued a resounding catcall. Then it wheeled on Smash, claws extended cat-as-catch-can.
The ogre's mitt moved swiftly. The hamfingers caught the catbird, who screeched piteously. Smash brought it down, pulled out one large tailfeather, and lofted the creature away. The catbird flew awkwardly, its rudder malfunctioning. The fight had been taken out of it, along with much of the flight
A catfish protested from below. It lifted its cat-head from the flowing water and yowled. Its voice had a nasal quality; the creature did indeed seem to be suffering from catarrh and perhaps catalepsy, though probably it had built up a certain immunity to the curses of the water. Smash hurled the feather down into its mouth. The catfish choked and sneezed, disappearing.
Now Smash, Tandy, and the Siren crossed without impediment. "Sometimes it's really handy having an ogre along," Tandy remarked. She seemed to have swung from absolute distrust to absolute support, and Smash was not displeased.
The path led through a field of cattails growing in catsup where cattle grazed, fattening up in case some cataclysm came. It terminated at a catacomb. "The catnip grows in there," the Siren said, pointing to the teeth of the comb that barred the entrance. "But it's dangerous to enter, because if the cataclysm comes, the cattle will stampede into it."
"Then I will go alone," Smash said. He brushed the comb aside and marched on down. The way soon became dark, but ogres had good night vision, so he wasn't much bothered.
"Don't invite catastrophe!" the Siren called after him.
"I certainly hope not," Smash called back, though in truth he wouldn't have minded a little of that to make things interesting. "I will be pusillanimously careful."
Deep inside the cave, he found a garden of pleasantly scented, mintlike plants with felinely furry leaves. Each had a spike of blue flowers. These must be the catnips.
Smash took hold of one and pulled it up by the roots, being uncertain which part of the plant he needed, and stuffed it into his bag. The flowers nipped at him, but lacked the power even to be annoying. He grabbed and crammed more plants, until he felt he had enough.
He turned to depart--and spied a dimly glowing object It was set in the cave wall beside the exit, framed in stone set with yellow cat's-eye gems. It was a furry hump with a tail descending from it: evidently the posterior of some sort of feline. A pussy-willow? No, too large for that. Smash recalled reference to one of the barbarian customs of the Mundanes, in which they killed animals and mounted their heads on walls. That was stupid--perfectly edible heads going to waste! Someone must have done the same for this cat's rear.
Smash considered, then decided to take the trophy along. It certainly wasn't doing any good here in the dark. Perhaps the girls would like to see it. Smash realized that it was a measure of the degradation foisted on him by the Eye Queue tha
t he even thought of showing something interesting to others, but he was stuck with it.
He reached out to grab the stone frame. The cats-eyes blinked warningly. The thing was firmly set, so he applied force. The frame ripped out of the wall--and the roof collapsed.
Puzzled, Smash put one fist up over his head. The rock fell on this and cracked apart, piling up on either side. Smash climbed up through the rubble, toting his bag of plants, but was unable to bring the posterior-trophy. In a moment he reached daylight.
"Oh, you're all right!" Tandy cried. "I was so afraid--"
"Rockfalls can't hurt ogres," Smash said. "I tried to take a trophy, but the roof fell in." He dusted himself off.
"A trophy?" Tandy asked blankly.
"The rear end of some kind of cat, mounted in the wall."
"That was the catastrophe!" the Siren cried. "I told you not to invite it!"
Catastrophe--a trophy of the rear of a cat. Now Smash understood. He had not properly applied his new intelligence, and had done considerable damage to the catnip garden as a result. He would try to be more careful in the future. As long as he was cursed with intellect, he might as well use it.
"I had better clear the rocks out of the garden," Smash said. This, too, was an un-ogrish sentiment, but the Eye Queue and the presence of the girls seemed to have that effect on him.
"No, don't bother," the Siren said. "You wouldn't know how to set it right. The caterpillar will take care of that after we leave. It likes to push rocks around."
They crossed the catwalk past the cataract again and proceeded to the catapult. This was a feline creature the size of a small sphinx, crouched in a clearing. Its tail expanded into a kind of netting at the end, large enough for a boulder to rest on. There was a basket nearby, just that size.
The Siren approached the catapult. "Will you hurl us to Lake Ogre-Chobee, please?" she asked. "We have some catnip for you."
The cat brightened. It nodded its whiskered head. They laid the catnip plants down before it, then moved the basket to the expanded tail. The three of them climbed in and drew the wicker lid over, enclosing themselves.
The cat sniffed the catnip. Its tail stiffened ecstatically. Then it nipped the catnip. As the potent stuff took effect, the tail suddenly sprang up, carrying the basket along. Suddenly the party of three was flying.
They looked out between the slats. Xanth was cruising by beneath them, all green and blue and yellow. There were scattered, low-hanging clouds around them, white below, all other colors above, where they couldn't be seen from the ground. Some were rainclouds, shaped like pools, brimming with water. Stray birds were taking baths in them, and flying fish were taking breathers there, too. The basket clipped the edge of these rainclouds and tore a hole in it; the water poured out in a horrendous leak. There was an angry uproar from below as the unscheduled deluge splashed on the forest. But this was the Region of Madness anyway; no one would be able to prove the difference.
Now it occurred to Smash to wonder about their descent. They had risen smoothly enough, but the fall might be less comfortable.
Then some sort of material popped out of the lid of the basket. It spread into a huge canopy that caught the air magically and held back the basket. The descent became slow, and they landed by the shore of Lake Ogre-Chobee.
They opened the basket and stepped out. "That was fun!" Tandy exclaimed girlishly. "But how will the catapult get its basket back?"
An orange creature hurried up, vaguely catlike. "I'll take that," it said.
"Who are you?" Tandy asked.
"I am the agent of this region. It is my job to see that things get where they belong. The catapult has a contract for the return of its baskets."
"Oh. Then you had better take it. But I don't know how you'll be able to carry that big basket through that thick jungle, or past the Region of Madness."
"No problem. I'm half mad already." The orange agent picked up the basket and trotted north. The vegetation wilted and died in the creature's vicinity, making a clear path.
"Oh--that's its magic talent," Tandy said. "Agent Orange kills plants."
They turned to Lake Ogre-Chobee. It was a fine blue expanse of water with a whirlpool in the center. "Don't go there," the Siren cautioned. "The curse-fiends live there."
"What is wrong with the curse-fiends?" Smash asked. "My mother was one."
The Siren turned her gaze on him, startled. "Oh--I understood you were an ogre. The curse-fiends are of human derivation. I didn't mean to--"
"My mother is an actress. She had to play the part of an ogress in an adaptation of Prince Charming, a Mundane tale. Naturally she was the ingenue."
"Naturally," the Siren agreed faintly.
"But my father Crunch happened onto the set, innocently looking for bones to crunch, and spied her and was instantly smitten by her horribleness and carried her away. Naturally she married him."
"Yes, of course," the Siren agreed, looking wan. "I am jealous of her fortune. I'm of human derivation myself."
"The curse-fiends fired off a great curse that killed a huge forest," Smash continued. "But my parents escaped the curse by becoming vegetarians. Most ogres crunch bones, so this confused the curse and caused it to misfire."
"You were raised in a non-bone-crunching home!" Tandy exclaimed.
"I'm still an ogre," he said defensively.
"I'm glad it worked out so well," the Siren said. "But I think it would be wise to avoid the curse-fiends. They might not appreciate your position."
"I suppose so," Smash admitted. "But they are excellent actors. No one ever confused my mother for a human being."
"I'm sure they didn't," the Siren agreed. "I saw one of the curse-fiends' plays once. It was very well done. But it can be awkward associating with someone who throws a curse when aggravated."
Smash laughed. "It certainly can be! I acted un-ogrish once, letting a wyvern back me off from an emerald I had found--"
"My mother set that emerald in place!" Tandy exclaimed.
"And my mother threw a curse at me," he continued. "It scorched the ground at my feet and knocked me on my head. I never let any monster back me off again!"
"That was cruel," Tandy said. "She shouldn't have cursed you."
"Cruel? Of course not. It was ogre love, the only kind our kind understands. She cursed my father once, and it was two days before he recovered, and the smile never left his face."
"Well, I don't know," Tandy said, and she seemed unusually sober. Did she have some connection to the cursefiends? Smash filed the notion for future reference.
They walked around a portion of Lake Ogre-Chobee, trying not to attract attention. There were no ogres in evidence, and no traces of their presence--no broken-off trees or fragmented boulders or flat-stomped ground.
There seemed to be no threats, either; the entire lake was girded, as far as they could see, by a pleasant little beach, and the water was clear and free of monsters. Evidently the curse-fiends had driven away anything dangerous.
"Look at the noses!" Tandy cried, pointing across the water. Smash looked. There were scores of nostrils swimming in pairs toward the shore, making little waves. As they drew near, he saw that the nostrils were the visible tips of more extensive snouts, which continued on into long reptilian bodies.
"Oh--the chobees," the Siren said, relaxing. "They're mostly harmless. Chobees aren't related to other kinds of bees; they don't sting. Once in a while one strays up to my lake."
"But what big teeth they have!" Tandy said.
"They're imitation, teeth, soft as pillows."
A chobee scrambled out onto the beach. It had short, fat, green legs and a green corrugated skin. The Siren petted it on the head, and the chobee grinned. She touched one of its teeth, and the tooth bent like rubber, snapping back into place when released.
But Smash had a nagging doubt. "I remember something my father said about the chobees. Most of them are innocent, but some--"
"Oh, yes, that's right," the Siren ag
reed. "A few, a very few, have real teeth. Those kind are dangerous."
"Let's stay away from the bad ones, then," Tandy said. "What do they look like?"
"I don't know," the Siren admitted.
"They look just like the nice ones," Smash said slowly, dredging his memory.
"But then any of these could be a bad one," Tandy said, alarmed.
"True," Smash agreed. "Unless the curse-fiends got rid of them."
"How could the curse-fiends tell the difference, if we can't?" Tandy asked.
"If a chobee eats a curse-fiend, it's probably a bad one," the Siren said, smiling obscurely.
"Do we need to tell the chobees apart the same way?" Tandy asked worriedly.
The Siren laughed musically. Her voice was only a shadow of what it must have been when she had her luring magic, but it remained evocative. "Of course not, dear. Let's avoid them all." That seemed easy enough to do, as the three of them could walk faster than the reptiles could. Soon the chobees gave up the chase and nosed back into the water, where they buzzed away toward the deeper portions of the lake. Tandy watched the wakes their nostrils left with relief.
At one point the lake become irregular, branching out into a satellite lake that was especially pretty. A partial causeway crossed the narrow connection between the large and small lakes. "I'll wade across!" Smash said, delighting in the chance to indulge in some splashing.
"I don't know," Tandy said. "The nice paths can be dangerous." She had learned from her experience with the tangler and the ant-lions; now she distrusted all the easy ways.
"I will explore the water," the Siren said. "I will be able to tell very quickly whether there are dangerous water creatures near. Besides, I'm hungry; I need to catch some fish." She slid into the small lake, her legs converting to the sleekly scaled tail, her dress fading out.
"If you find a monster, send it my way," Smash called. "I'm hungry, too!"
She smiled and dived below the surface, a bare-breasted nymph swimming with marvelous facility. In a moment her head popped up, tresses glistening. "No monsters here!" she called. "Not even any chobees. I believe that causeway is safe; I find no pitfalls there."